Many years after Dr. Ricardo Sztein had passed away, the following letter was found tucked away through a rip in the underbelly of the mattress of his room. We don’t know when he wrote the letter since it wasn’t dated. Poor Ricardo, a good man, tormented, who craved to be understood. Dear Lillian, How [...]
This month I’m posting excerpts from earlier drafts of Jellyfish Have Eyes that feature the relationships between Ricardo Stzein and other key characters in the novel. Ricardo’s troubles began when he was browsing through a book he purchased on vision in invertebrates. He had studied the eyes of chicken and mice for twenty years, but [...]
This month I’m posting excerpts from earlier drafts of Jellyfish Have Eyes that feature the relationships between Ricardo Stzein and other key characters in the novel. The last two sentences of this excerpt are the most impactful. In a completely fictional, partly cynical way they capture a major theme of the book supporting basic research. It [...]
Final drafts, like any marketed product, look polished, straightforward and consistent, but that’s not how they got there. Much is left out of any published book, or any final product for that matter. Final products shine as the tips of the creative process. Readers get little information on what thoughts and agonizing contradictions characters suffer [...]
"Relevance is a malleable term." I had dinner last night with Sophia Lass; bless her sweet nature. Ricardo was lucky to have her as his lawyer in my novel Jellyfish Have Eyes. She begged me not to steal her thunder by divulging the outcome of her efforts. Fair enough. What a ravenous appetite she had, [...]
Recently Ricardo stepped out of Jellyfish Have Eyes looking for tell-tale signs that his troubles with science in the mid- 21st century were sinister developments of earlier times. As he suspected, he found an article in The Washington Post that he believed foreshadowed the demise of ivory-towered basic research. I remember that he looked depressed [...]
